Guides › Self-employed

Self-employed: your tax year

Nobody pays a sole trader back. Your receipts and business miles come off your profit instead, so Reclaim keeps them by tax year and has the totals ready when the year ends.

Setting up

1. In setup, choose I’m self-employed. If you set up the app some other way, run setup again from Settings.
2. Say whether you drive for the business. Answer no and trip tracking is hidden, so the app is receipts and nothing else.
3. Pick your country. It sets your currency and when your tax year starts: 6 April in the UK, 1 July in Australia, 1 January in most other places.

There is no claim address to fill in and nothing is sent anywhere on a schedule. Everything stays with you until you ask for it.

The Tax year tab

The Report tab becomes Tax year. It shows what you have spent so far, split by category, with your business mileage underneath if you record it. Step back with the arrow to see an earlier year.

A receipt Reclaim could not read with confidence is left out of the total until you check it, and the tab says how many are waiting. A total that is quietly short is worse than one that tells you it is not finished.

Business miles

If you drive for the business, each journey is priced at the published rate per mile. In the UK that is the simplified expenses rate: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 miles in the tax year, then 25p. Other countries use their own, listed on the mileage rates pages.

The rate per mile covers the cost of running the vehicle. Fuel, insurance, servicing and repairs are all inside it, so they do not go on your return as well. Reclaim points it out when a year has both mileage and fuel or repair receipts. Parking and tolls are not covered by the rate, so keep those.

The UK flat rate covers cars, vans and motorcycles. It does not cover bicycles, so rides on a bike are recorded with no rate against them. Claim what the bike costs you as receipts instead.

Started driving for the business, or stopped? I drive for the business in Settings switches mileage on or off.

Some people use their actual running costs instead of the rate. That is your choice to make, and once you have used the rate for a vehicle HMRC expect you to keep using it for that vehicle.

At the end of the year

Tap Email me the records on the Tax year tab. Choose a PDF with every receipt on it, a spreadsheet whose first sheet is the totals by category, or both, ready for your return or your accountant. There is a CSV option for bookkeeping software.

It goes to the email address on your account. Sending it changes nothing in the app, so you can send yourself a copy halfway through the year and again at the end. With notifications on, Reclaim reminds you a week before the year closes.

Categories and your tax return

When you scan a receipt, Reclaim files it under a category. There are fourteen for a self-employed account, from fuel and parking through stock and materials, phone and office costs, premises and insurance, to professional fees and bank charges.

In the UK the Tax year tab adds them up under the headings of the self-employment pages of your tax return. Fuel, parking, servicing and train fares all count towards Car, van and travel expenses. A phone bill and a box of envelopes count towards Phone, fax, stationery and other office costs. Each heading shows what it is made of, and the first sheet of the spreadsheet in your export carries the same totals.

The reader is not always right. Open a receipt, tap its category and choose another. The totals follow straight away.

The headings follow the usual reading of HMRC’s notes for the form. Where a cost belongs is your decision in the end.

If you report every quarter

Some sole traders now send HMRC an update every quarter under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. It applies from April 2026 if your qualifying income is over £50,000. The line drops to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028. Below it you still file once a year.

If that is you, choose Every quarter in setup, or turn on I report every quarter in Settings. The Tax year tab then shows the four quarters of your tax year. In the UK they end on 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April, and each update is due by the 7th of the following month.

Each quarter shows its own total and the tax year so far beside it. The update you send is the running total for the year, so both figures are there. Email me this quarter’s records sends the PDF and the spreadsheet for that quarter.

Once your figures are in, tap Mark this quarter as submitted. It is your own note. Nothing is sent anywhere and no total changes. Add a receipt to that quarter later and the quarter tells you, so a late one is not missed.

Reclaim does not file with HMRC. A quarterly update goes through software HMRC recognises, so use these figures there or pass them to your accountant.

Keeping your records

HMRC expect a sole trader to keep records for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline. A Reclaim account is not an archive, so keep the exports somewhere of your own.

What Reclaim does not decide

The totals are what you spent. Whether each cost is allowable depends on your business, and Reclaim does not make that call for you. If you are unsure, ask your accountant.